Christendom in America has been steadily declining for decades, with the views espoused by many who claim to be Christians straying further and further from pure orthodoxy. Like the audience of Hebrews, the church in America needs the pure spiritual milk that can only come through Scripture.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.—Hebrews 5:12-6:3, ESV
The Problem of Theological Illiteracy
One of the biggest problems I see in the church today is what I refer to as theological illiteracy.  This means that many Christians have an overly limited or even erroneous understanding of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith.  This is a serious problem, as an inadequate knowledge of God causes us to worship not the true God as revealed in Scripture but a god our minds create, which is the definition of idolatry.  Erroneous views of Scripture, God’s nature, our sinful condition, and the process of salvation can cause us to trust in the wrong Gospel, which actually brings about God’s curse (Galatians 1:6-9).  Such views also cause us to distort what Scripture teaches and misapply it to our lives, even leading us to approve what is evil and shun what is good, which similarly brings about God’s curse (Isaiah 5:20, Romans 10:2-3).  But is it really that bad?  The recent “State of Theology” study by Ligonier Ministries suggests it is.  In this post I will look at the general takeaways from that study, while future posts will examine more specific lessons from that study.  Ultimately, the goal is to begin to counter the epidemic of theological illiteracy found throughout the church in America.
The “State of the Theology” Study and Methodology
Ligonier Ministries regularly surveys American Christians to gauge the general state of theology in the American church.  They present various statements that address Scripture, God’s nature, human nature, sin, salvation, the church, and how Scripture clearly applies to certain current issues.  People could answer that they strongly or slightly agreed or disagreed with the statement or were unsure.  These statements are written so that a Christian with general knowledge of the basic tenets of Christianity can easily identify whether the statement is true or false, as the validity of all of the statements can be determined either directly from Scripture or derived from Scripture. This means that the more people answer them correctly, the healthier the state of theology in America.  The most recent results can be found here.  The site also has a data explorer that allows you to view results broken down by region, denomination, age, gender, population density, education, income, marital status, ethnicity, and regularity of church attendance.
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Written by Aaron M. Renn |
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Why can’t churches be working to identify people whom they believe would be highly effective pastors – using whatever criteria they think is most Biblical and appropriate – and encouraging those people to go into ministry? There’s a lot of opportunity in local churches to do a stealth vetting of these folks before tapping them on the shoulder, such as by asking them to volunteer in more purely service roles, giving them leadership opportunities, etc. and seeing how they perform. Rather than waiting for people to decide they want to go into ministry, instead encourage high potential people to strongly consider doing so.

I had always assumed that there was a surplus of people pursuing careers in ministry. There are many seminaries, each with an incentive to attract students. And people seemed to have to go through a sort of waiting room process in college ministry or as a youth pastor before getting an actual pastor or associate pastor position.
But what I’m hearing from widely divergent sources is that there’s actually a big talent shortage in this area.
This first came on my radar a decade ago when Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Church started talking about the looming succession crisis in megachurches like his. There were hardly any megachurches in 1975, but there are a huge number today, often still run by their founding pastor. Replacing all these soon to be retiring folks with someone who could successfully operate at that level would be a challenge. Of course, Hybels’ own carefully crafted succession plan blew up.
Today even churches that can afford to pay a solid salary are finding it difficult to recruit pastors. Many seminaries have seen significant enrollment declines. For example, Gordon-Conwell saw its enrollment fall by half between 2012 and 2021, and it is selling off its gorgeous campus north of Boston. I increasingly hear people talking about this talent shortage issue. I just watched a video of one pastor noting that new church startups will be increasingly difficult to pull off in today’s climate because there’s no pipeline of talent to launch them.
There appears to be a similar problem in the Roman Catholic Church, which has an aging cadre of priests and far fewer young people electing to pursue a priestly vocation.
At the same time, vast numbers of churches in the US seem poised to close. There are simply too many small, non-viable congregations, and it’s unlikely that more than a few of them will be successfully revitalized. Christianity’s decline in America also augurs for a decreased demand for ministers. So while there appears to be a pastoral shortage, the demand level is also highly uncertain. It’s easy to see how this sort of uncertainty would discourage people from going into ministry.
But given that there does seem to be a talent shortage today, that presents an opportunity to rethink the pastoral recruitment and training process.
Entry into the pastoral career track seems to rely almost entirely on self-selection. That is, someone has a desire or senses a call to ministry, then goes to seminary, etc.
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As with so many of our favorite hymns, “The Love of God” was born in adversity. Frederick Lehman (1868–1953), who wrote the hymn with his daughter, had experienced the failure of his once-profitable business, which left him packing crates of oranges and lemons in Pasadena, California, to make ends meet. Again and again throughout history, deep and enduring trials seem to have a strange and beautiful way of swelling the waves of worship.

You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told. (Psalm 40:5)
As with so many of our favorite hymns, “The Love of God” was born in adversity. Frederick Lehman (1868–1953), who wrote the hymn with his daughter, had experienced the failure of his once-profitable business, which left him packing crates of oranges and lemons in Pasadena, California, to make ends meet. Again and again throughout history, deep and enduring trials seem to have a strange and beautiful way of swelling the waves of worship.
Perhaps the most memorable lines in the hymn, however, were not Lehman’s, but words someone had found scribbled on the walls of an insane asylum a couple hundred years earlier, words that had been passed along to Lehman and held profound meaning for him.
Could we with ink the ocean fill,And were the skies of parchment made;Were every tree on earth a quill,And every man a scribe by trade;To write the love of God aboveWould drain the ocean dry,Nor could the scroll contain the whole,Though stretched from sky to sky.
The lyrics, it turns out, were a translation of an old Aramaic poem (now almost a thousand years old). And while no one knows the name of the insane asylum patient, the circumstances of his suffering, or how he came across the poem, the lines sparkle with surprising clarity, hope, and, well, sanity. A kind of spiritual sanity that often eludes us.
More Than Can Be Told
That Lehman treasured the lyrics is hardly surprising. Living just a handful of miles from the Pacific Ocean, he would have known, with acute awareness, the roaring vastness of the sea, the tall and swaying elegance of palm trees, and the bursts and hues of California sunsets. Day by day, he held the brilliant orangeness of its oranges and smelled the lively tartness of its lemons. The ocean, the trees, the sky, the earth were enormous and familiar friends of his — and yet each so small next to the love he had come to know in Christ.
When Lehman looked at the sky, he saw a hint of something wider still.
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